By Douglas V. Gibbs
Saturday Morning, on Fox News Watch, longtime journalist and Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers had a lot to say about health care in the United States. As a Democratic Party sympathizer, her comments made it apparent that she is in the tank for Obama and his liberal left Congressional cronies.
She said that we need government health care because of "all the people that are suffering under our current system."
If it is so horrible, then why didn't Obama reach into his deep pockets and give his grandma better care than what she was getting? If it is so terrible, then why isn't people like Kirsten going to Canada for their care?
Last time I checked, Canadians were crossing the border to come to America for their care.
Of course, right about now the argument the Leftists will present is that the infant mortality rate is higher in the U.S., and that the lower mortality rate in Canada is due to the government takeover of the health care system.
If that is the case, then why is it that high-risk pregnant Canadian women are being sent to the U.S. to ensure safe deliveries and newborn survival?
According to Kirsten Powers, the health care is so horrendous in the United States that hordes of people are being "Rejected for health care in the current system . . . refused care for existing conditions. . . are being left to die," and that the media not pointing these atrocities out "creates a vacuum for people to make things up."
I've heard that drivel before, Kirsten. Rather than accuse those that are against a government takeover of the health care industry of making things up, how about you read H.R. 3200 - and study the history of government controlled health care - and how it has always failed.
Also, more news of reality for Kirsten Powers is that most people that are uninsured either choose not to be insured, are in the process of changing jobs and haven't secured their insurance yet, or are illegal aliens and should not even be in this country in the first place.
The problem of the uninsured has been greatly exaggerated in the hopes of creating a fervor among the people so that they would demand a change in the system.
I am not saying that our current system, especially the way the insurance system is being run, is the best it can be. I agree with the Leftists that there are some serious problems with the system in its current state. But the solution isn't injecting more government into it. Government intrusion into the health care system is the reason it is not functioning properly in the first place. The free market needs to be the driving force behind health care, not government regulations and control.
Leftists will proclaim that kicking government out of the industry will be a recipe for greed and unethical activities in the world of health care. The reality of it, however, is that with the government having such a firm hand in the health care industry, opportunity is given to lobbyists, and their money funded by various health care and corporate interests, to bend and sway the politicians to their desire, and create corruption the free market could never be able to conjure up. Politicians, working with corrupt members of large public corporations, and various health care interest groups, have created a tangled web of tax and employment laws that make the system incredibly inefficient, and has herded costs up at a pace that exceeds any past inflationary increases.
If we were to let the free market truly drive health care, the consumer becomes the watch dog of the industry, and the patient ensures the greedy, corrupt members of the system remain honest, and fair. After all, if the consumer gets wind of unethical activities in the market, they change providers, and the crooked members of the industry go out of business.
In a customer - provider relationship, without a third party like insurance companies, the medical providers are forced to present quality medicine at a reasonable price, or risk losing their customer base to competitors. Insurance should only become involved for catastrophic care, not the basic visits to the doctor.
Democrats want nothing to do with using the Free Market to fix the system, and small-minded Republicans think they have to come up with another, less intrusive, government system to compete with the Left. In other words, none of the cockroaches in Washington are giving the Free Market a fair shake, or any serious consideration.
If we put the industry back into the position to serve the consumer directly, competition will truly return, and we will see a health care system that will ultimately seek out to improve outcomes through more efficient means. That is how free markets work.
Prices are not based on what the consumer can afford. The current costs of the health care industry are based on what the deep pockets of the insurance companies can dish out, while the medical professionals do anything and everything they can to avoid getting sued by ambulance chasing lawyers.
Health insurance needs to be uncoupled from the tax code, taking employers out of the mix. The removal of employer required health care would free up funds for wages, and allow that increase of wages to be used by the consumer to use the free market to buy the health care of their choice. As it stands now, our payment into the health care industry is redistributed through the human resource systems of corporations, to the bloated bureaucracy of health insurance companies, and controlled by ridiculous regulations by the all-powerful government. That is where health care money gets wasted.
Deregulating the health insurance system would remove the government's iron fist over the industry. Getting government out of the picture would allow free market forces to begin working. With a free market approach, we will see a return to the system we had half a century ago where high deductible plans covered only "major medical" events, and consumers paid for routine health care visits. This Free Market model would in turn guide the health care industry into a more efficient and more effective model that thrives under free market pressures.
Government micro-managing health insurance is one of the major causes of the problem. If government intrusion into the system is the problem, then how is it possible that a plan like H.R. 3200, where government takes an increased role in the administration and payment of health care, is the solution?
Increased government regulation and intrusion is not the solution, and in the long run will destroy our health care system if a public option ever becomes law.
If the government wants to do something so that it can be a part of the solution, rather than being a large part of the problem, they can consider passing a bill that institutes tort reform.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Infant Mortality Rate Prompts Canada To Send High-Risk Pregnant Women Across The Border - All Headline News
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